Huntington Beach's Matt Costa will be performing live on KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic" today at 11:15 a.m.

Tune in to 89.9 FM, or if you're stuck at work, you can listen online at kcrw.com. For iTunes users—aren't we all?—there's a link embedded in the "Radio" section of iTunes.

Costa will also be playing a couple of sorta-hometown shows this weekend: Saturday at the El Rey and Sunday at the Glass House. Saturday's long sold-out but head over to Pomona to get your fix before Costa and co. embark on a mini-tour of the U.S. with the Delta Spirit.

Many moons ago, I wrote mucho music reviews for the Weekly. The one I still get e-mail about years later was my 2002 take on why Latinos love Morrissey so much. I included the essay in my recent ¡Ask a Mexican! book, meaning people now know why you can reduce many cholos to quivering pussies by blasting "This Charming Man" or "The Headmaster Ritual."

One of the fans I interviewed for the piece was Patricia Godinez, a lecturer with the English department at Cal State Fullerton. Today, Godinez e-mailed me to reveal that she was interviewed by Kobra, a culture show in Sweden, about her Latin love for Morrissey after reading the Weekly's article. Watch the clip here (Godinez is the lovely lady interviewed about a minute into the clip), and skoal!

A recent article from The Lefsetz Letter site waxes foreboding about the CD's imminent demise and the inevitable restructuring of the music industry. Reading it induces a bit of schadenfreude in anyone who remembers when record companies introduced the format in the early '80s. Major-label moguls proclaimed that the CD would make us all eagerly dispose of our vinyl, as the smaller silvery disc promised "perfect sound forever." Turned out that forecast was awry, as CDs proved merely to offer "imperfect sound for a time quite a bit short of eternity."

Here's one particularly bracing prediction from the Lefsetz piece:

Best Buy and its brethren are going to kill the CD. They're gonna shrink floor space and titles and one day they're just going to stop selling discs completely. This will happen long before record labels desire to give up on the physical format. Retail is in tune with its customers' whims, it has to keep moving forward to survive. Soon CDs will be evidence of the past, and these stores want to be the future. Big box retailers will kill the CD the same way the industry killed the cassette and vinyl. They'll just stop stocking them, and the consumer will go elsewhere.

Oh well, formats come and go; no need to mourn too hard. Like vinyl has done over the last quarter century, CDs will serve a niche audience before going the way of the 8 track or entering a new incarnation as high-end coasters and/or coke mirrors. Meanwhile, millions of DJs will continue to spin vinyl as if it never received the music biz's death sentence. Wax has last laugh over aluminum—film at 11.

My chief complaint about the Black Keys is that they don't release something new every single day of the week, or go on month-long tours of my immediate neighborhood.

Thankfully, the Keys released a complimentary four-song live EP earlier this week via their Myspace page, free of charge. A small taste but a taste nonetheless.

On this tic-tac of a release is "No Trust," from their sophomore album, Thickfreakness, a pair from Rubber Factory, "Girl Is On My Mind," and "10am Automatic," and a dose of their latest effort and greatest departure, Magic Potion, comes in "Elevator."

All four songs were recorded and mixed by either Dan Auerbach (guitar) or Patrick Carney (drums) on their tour last fall, and represent a decent cross section of their catalogue, as much as such a small collection could accomplish anyway. I was fortunate enough to catch two shows on this tour, one in Hollywood, and a second in Tempe, AZ. Unfortunately the band has since been either overseas, or at Coachella, which is overseas from my wallet, so I am parched for a live show. It's nice to hear the people screaming behind an Auerbach riff once again.

While the Keys have managed to poke their head through the mainstream ceiling with appearances on Conan O'Brien, and endorsements from the likes of Rolling Stone and Robert Plant (who said he wanted to play bass for the duo), they are a relatively well-kept and treasured secret, especially among those who show up to the live shows, which are host to the unique sort of camaraderie only experienced by a group of people who are all hip to the vibe, so to speak. Why else would I drive to Arizona?

The new EP is the only live taste us OC folk are likely to get for a while, as they are back east and Midwest for at least the next couple of months. Wait patiently, and in the meantime, check it out at www.myspace.com/theblackkeys.

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In which the music editor pithily enthuses about new releases and reissues he thinks will enhance your life and erode your cynicism about the state of music, circa now. This is the first in what I hope will be a daily series. You can't say I don't have grandiose ambitions...

Valet
Blood Is Clean
(Kranky; kranky.net)
release date: April 16, 2007

Valet is Honey Owens of Portland post-rock mavericks Jackie-O Motherfucker. Blood Is Clean, her debut full-length under the Valet moniker, is ghostly dreambient (dreamy ambient, ya dig?) that appears to be channeled from a deep and enigmatic place into which few musicians dare to tap. Owens uses subliminal hand-drum patter; tranced-out, sotto-voce intonations and drifty sighs; guitar strands that recall the brain-teasing microtones heard on Spacemen 3's Dream Weapon; and a grip of FX boxes to generate a panoply of ectoplasmic evocations; call it lullabies for angels bathed in sacrificial blood.

Throughout Blood Is Clean, Owens' gestures are subtle and shrouded in misty mysticism. This is the sort of album you play at 3 a.m. when you're feeling out of sorts and exhausted from the world's bluster and soul-crushing demands. I listen to this disc when I want to get centered and transported to a hazy, subterranean mind state that makes me forget about the bureaucratic nightmare of living in what some people charitably call "civilization."

[Kranky's site and Owens' MySpace have some MP3s you can check out.]

Reader Pat O'Connor called this morning to inform us that former Kiss guitarist Mark St. John died of a cerebral hemorrhage April 5. He was 51. St. John's death has received little attention in Orange County media, but it has been reported by Billboard's website, Reuters, msnbc.com, Wikipedia, and other major news outlets.

St. John's major claim to fame was playing on Kiss' 1984 album Animalize, which many fans consider to be among the best by that band during its unmasked phase. After his brief stint with Kiss (he had to leave a tour early after developing a form of arthritis called Reiter's Syndrome), St. John formed White Tiger with ex-Black Sabbath vocalist David Donato and in 1990 collaborated with Kiss drummer Peter Criss on a project, but left it wthout releasing any material. In 2003, St. John issued the instrumental album Magic Bullet Theory.

The Garden Grove resident reportedly had been living in his mother's basement for the past several years, sanding guitars and teaching that instrument to aspiring local players. In his later years, the guitarist allegedly suffered from crystal-meth abuse. According to O'Connor, St. John's neighbor and a fan of his, St. John had sold all of his Kiss paraphernalia except for the Animalize gold record and a tour itinerary.

We just received word that legendary punk-rock drummer Don Bolles (Germs, 45 Grave, Kitten Sparkles) has been taken into custody by Newport Beach police for possession of a bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap, which contains hemp seed oil, a substance whose very presence can lead to social anarchy and extremely hygienic human beings.

This bulletin posted at www.ocpunk.com recounts the sad saga in more detail.

Hello... is this thing on? Check! Check!

Okay. Everything appears to be in working order.

I'm Dave Segal, the new music editor of OC Weekly. Pleased to meet you.

To expand a bit on this post by Tom Child, I come here from Seattle, where there are as many bands as there are Starbucks units. A fair number of them are pretty good, too (the bands, I mean, not the coffee shop; I don't frequent Starbucks because I'm a rebel). I'd like to think that an area as sprawling and cultured as Orange County would have similar quantities of kickass groups. Prove that I'm not a foolish optimist. Please.

One of my goals here is to discover extraordinary talent residing in Orange County, no matter how seasoned or green it happens to be. Here's where you, the aspiring or long-under-appreciated musician, can help me to help you. Please send me your music or point me to links to your website and/or MySpace page (see my info at the end of this post). Shove your art in front of my big nose and make me pay attention to it. If I deem it worthy (and I consider myself an open-minded SOB), you will get covered, sooner or later, in print and/or on this here blog.

To elaborate, I'm looking for the extraordinary, the mind-blowing, the head-scratchingly bewildering, the brilliantly absurd. I am not looking for the one-billionth reiteration of a style that sounded tired in 1979 or in 1992 or even in 2001—unless you're so amazingly adept at it one can't help gaping in awe at your awesome replications of said traditional styles. I call on deep crate-digging DJs, eccentric laptop producers, Aeolian harpists, conga virtuosi, avant-jazzers, rock mavericks, singer-songwriters who'd rather burn down a coffeehouse than perform in one, heavy-metal junglists, rappers whose backpacks are bulging with tomes by Henry Miller and Georges Bataille— basically, anyone surfing against the grain and kicking the status quo in the nads—to send me your brainchildren for consideration.

My mailbox and ears await your handiwork. Gracias.

DAVE SEGAL
OC WEEKLY
1666 N MAIN ST #500
SANTA ANA CA 92701
dsegal@ocweekly.com

Please join me in welcoming new music editor Dave Segal, coming to us all the way from Seattle's "The Stranger." Check out his impressive body of work here. Keep an eye on this blog over the next few months for more frequent updates and feel free to e-mail any local music tips/suggestions/invites to him at dsegal@ocweekly.com.

... comes not from one of our esteemed musicians or music critics, but Jim Ridley, the film critic at our Southern sistah paper the Nashville Scene. Jim was actually using this to describe next year's sure Oscar contender Epic Movie, but I'm calling dibs to use this as a band name (once I meet a musician, and form a band, and learn to play an instrument): Feeble Fast-buck Shitbomb

Is it okay to sell band tee shirts out of my car before I have a band?

M + B Gallery's GONZO show closes tomorrow. Says them:

GONZO began as a personal collaboration with Thompson prior to his untimely death, and has since come to completion with the support of his family and estate. The show will feature many never before seen photographs from Thompson's personal archive, including shots from his early days as a foreign correspondent in Puerto Rico, living in Big Sur in the 1960s, time on the road with the Hell's Angels, illuminating self-portraits, and many personal moments with friends and family throughout the years.

GONZO is a visual tour de force that will take you on an incredible journey through the life and times of the legendary writer Hunter S. Thompson. The iconoclastic American author developed his own style of writing that became known as "gonzo journalism"-a completely truthful, but not always factual, hands on method of reporting. With his numerous articles for Rolling Stone and other magazines, his acclaimed books including Hell's Angels , The Rum Diary , Curse of Lono and the seminal Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas , Thompson influenced generations and established himself as an original and powerful voice in the political and literary world.

Catalog of HST photos including a lot of work from the Hell's Angel era here. This originally came from Arthur where you can currently find out about avatar incarnate Marjorie Cameron pictured here.

Guy edited all the dialogue out of a '60s Bakshi Spiderman. Little kids watched this for free on American TV.

Alice Coltrane...

...the jazz performer and composer who was inextricably linked with the adventurous musical improvisations of her late husband, legendary saxophonist John Coltrane, has died. She was 69.

According to Rob Gordon, there's an art to making a good mixtape. It takes some finesse, sure, but a list and a formula? Eh. But whatever method you subscribe to, it's time to polish up your skills because tomorrow is the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art's Save the Mixtape event.

The premise is that along with some live music (courtesy of Family Tree Analog, The Health Club and A Faulty Chromosome), the event will reinvigorate your passion for little plastic tapes. Go to hell mix-cds and playlists! The tape should have six songs on each side, totaling a whopping 12!

Once everyone shows up, there will be a big mixtape exchange and everyone will probably be a little better for it.

Orange County Center for Contemporary Art; 117 North Sycamore, Santa Ana; Sat., Jan. 13 at 8:00 P.M. Free with a mixtape!

If we're to believe the idealists out there, rock 'n roll is still (and always was) a hotbed of innovation and creativity. Now, without even getting into details, I can tell you that that is a big, heaping lie. Ever heard Jet? How about Godsmack? Yeah.

So, want to fuel your musical cynicism? Take a look at the attached image: that billowing '80s mane, that amorphous physique, those nimble little fingers: that's Eddie Van Halen! On a patent application!

Thanks to Google's brand-new and still-in-beta Patent Search, you can now scour millions and millions of patents once relegated to the (presumably) soul-crushing halls of America's vast patent offices. And while you could use the search for valuable and inventive purposes, it's far more entertaining to find out who among your favorite celebrities and musicians has felt important and inspired enough to patent their ideas. Case in point: Eddie Van Halen.

Issued in 1987 to Edward L. Van Halen, the above patent is for a musical instrument support that allows you to throw off the confines of the traditional guitar strap and enter some new, amazing 4th-dimension of guitar playing. Without it, you are doomed to guitar mediocrity. Sigh. Here's a clip from the patent's abstract:

The supporting device is constructed and arranged for supporting the musical instrument on the player to permit total freedom of the player's hands to play the instrument in a completely new way, thus allowing the player to create new techniques and sounds previously unknown to any player.

Of course, the patent hilarity doesn't stop with Van Halen. Turns out Harry Connick Jr. holds a patent for some sort of musical syncing device intended for large-scale orchestras. Also, Michael Jackson holds a patent for the "method and means for creating an anti-gravity illusion." Whoa.

But what makes this even more hilarious, as Kevin points out, is the fact that we wouldn't even be seeing these if it weren't for pure, unadulterated greed. I can't even fathom what patents could possibly come next. Capitalism, you're my hero.

Via Boing Boing and Ironic Sans

Last year, the heads of the Literary Journalism Program at UCI sent out an email regarding an internship opportunity with Rolling Stone. That tempted me for about two seconds. Then I realized that it was Rolling Stone and that MTV Networks was slated to turn the whole thing into some awful reality program. That's how I want to jumpstart my journalism career!

A year later and their mass-media-clusterfuck is here in the form of I'm From Rolling Stone.The surefire guilty pleasure (okay, probably not) of all us snarky music types, I'm From Rolling Stone chronicles the paths of six walking stereotypes...err...umm...music journalism hopefuls: Krishtine, Peter, Krystal, Colin, Tika and Russell. I'll let you figure out the stereotypes yourselves. Much more fun that way. Trust me.

Now, normally I'm not one to judge (ha!) but I absolutely need to get something out into the open here. In case you can't tell already, this show is complete bullshit. Watch the show's preview video and you'll see the interns getting hit on by Atmosphere, interviewing Snoop Dogg and eyeing their bylines on some brand new MacBooks. Welcome to the Real World. But even better than the preview clip are the interns' profiles that are linked above. Let's take a look at Colin's answer to what his favorite concert moment was:

No. At Lollapalooza, Mooney Suzuki's singer, Sammy James Jr., smashed his head against the guitar. Blood was dripping down his face, and he looked at me, took off his sunglasses and handed them to me. It felt like time slowed down, I was so stoked. That was the show that I really knew I wanted to do something that related to music for the rest of my life because I just really saw the power of a live show and the power that can hold.

Then there's Krishtine's involvement with Bay Area hip-hop mag Ruckus:

I'm not going to try to be big-headed about it, but I feel like the fact that we created our own publication really helped the Bay Area music community reach its potential, because people that didn't understand it through the music could pick up our magazine and see aesthetically and culturally, all the aspects that they wouldn't be able to see without physically being here.

Thank god Rolling Stone is still a bastion of good taste because I don't know what I'd do without it. But you know what? I think I'm just bitter. If I wore bandanas or had a mustache and swirly blond hair, I could've been on that show too. Bummer.

I'm From Rolling Stone will air Sundays at 10 P.M. on MTV beginning January 7th.

Due to what seemingly was a last minute venue change (and not bad reporting), the show info at the end of Ziegler's piece on McCluer this week was incorrect in the print edition. The correct info can be found online in the story here.

A couple of weeks ago, I walked into the office and caught Steve belting out the chorus of "Love Will Tear Us Apart." As surreal and surprisingly awesome as it was, you astute readers out there will know that it was simply practice for his piece "Emotional Rescue," in which he explains why when we're down in the dumps, we shouldn't listen to Joy Division or Gordon Lightfoot, but clever and emotionally distant bands like Talking Heads and New Pornographers. I know I've never cried to Speaking in Tongues.

But what if you do want to wallow in some month-old memories or self-pity? What if you want to take all that pain, grab a bowl of popcorn and let a few pathetic tears salt those fluffy little bits of Jiffy Pop? Well, you're in luck, then, because I've compiled an entirely non-comprehensive list of some of my favorite sad songs (of indie rock!), all of which will surely stoke the flames of that depressed little fire you've got burning inside.

• Neutral Milk Hotel – "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea": Images of death and overwhelming beauty get me every time. And I have to admit, the second time I heard this song, my eyes welled up like a little baby. Yours probably will too.


• Mirah – "Mt. St. Helens": Failed love as volcanic explosion? Absolutely. And with Phil Elvrum handling the production, the song quickly turns into a bombastic, quaking tragedy. In a good way.


• Songs:Ohia – "Love Leaves Its Abusers": Jason Molina probably will never escape the Neil Young comparisons. But I can assure you that Neil isn't this tragic. Molina's bare guitar playing and haunting voice make for one of the most bitter, depressing tracks that I've ever heard. And I love it.


• Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – "I Love Creedence": Look. At. The. Band's. Name. Does this even need an explanation?


• Xiu Xiu – "Fast Car": Jamie Stewart's cover of the Tracy Chapman hit is somber and shaky, the hallmarks of any great Xiu Xiu song. Of course, not everyone loves Stewart's overdramatic warble, but this is one of his most delicate and beautiful efforts.


• Interpol - "Take You On A Cruise": Mild guilty pleasure! Not so much a tear-jerker as a plodding longing for love.


• Swan Lake - "All Fires": The song's lumbering beat and fuzzed-out guitars are perfect for its story of a tragic, sweeping flood. Somehow entirely depressing but strangely uplifting all at once.


• Björk - "5 Years": I couldn't resist this one. After all, there's no better way to finish a bitter, depressing list of songs than with a nice, confrontational Björk tune.

If you didn't know, bands don't like telling you what they sound like. Here's an example why: Let's say I play in a band, we're called "Stillborn Leper", and my boss asks me what we sound like, and I say "We're like a mix of Radiohead and The Velvet Underground, but our guitarist is really into The Pixies and Joy Division so sometimes we have a lot of post-punk going on, too." Stillborn Leper is, in all likeliness, a poorly executed teenage train wreck so godawfully bland it could sound like any band. Or, worse yet: a carbon copy of one of the aforementioned sacred cow bands. Summary: if you ask a band what they sound like, you're going to get a stumbling, awkward answer, if anything at all. It's a secret.

Take, for example, the Locust, of San Diego (If you haven't heard any of these bands, take a minute, click on the links and listen for a MULTI-MULTIMEDIA JOURNALISTIC CAVE DIVE). Their genre classification is fairly basic—punk/experimental/progressive. Punk because they're loud, I'd assume, experimental because they're . . . weird. And progressive because they have a keyboard player, I guess.

Not really that interesting, honestly. So lets take OC hype-wave riders Cold War Kids: Rock/Blues/Soul. Okay, the only thing worse than saying you play a style of music that's only come up in the last two years (ie: freak folk) is saying you play a style that came up at least 60 years before your oldest band member was born. It's the equivalent of Tom Delonge saying Box Car Racer's primarily influence was Fugazi. You're sure you weren't listening to any of those other fashionably sensitive three word bands, dick wad? Either Cold War Kids are trying to say they're so charmingly time warped that you start to wonder if you're listening to a reissue, or they're doing one of those "we're beyond classification" cop-outs, but more subtly.

However, the absolute most efficient and frank way of telling people your band is so original that they can't be defined is to use "other". There are two ways you can use the title—first, you can be like Matt Costa, and use "other" as an addendum to your first two picks; the least pretentious option. In this case, Costa apparently adds an unclassifiable new touch to the archaic formulas "indie" and "folk" are based on time and time again. OR you can go ahead and ditch those first two categories: your band completely falls outside the grasp of conventional definitions. For a perfect example of a band that perfectly fits this definition, look no further than She Wants Revenge: if they aren't a shining beacon of raw, never-before-seen creative energy, nobody is. Music is meaningless.

Franz Ferdinand, finally, brings us to the final category. They list themselves first as "glam" (whatever) then "indie" (of course they do) and finally crunk. Crunk?!? They aren't crunk! . . . ohhhhhhhhh, it's a joke! Here we have encountered the ironic MySpace genre label! They not only know how absurd the system is, they take it a step further in wanting YOU to know that they know how absurd it is. Necessary!

If I seem like I'm refusing to give anybody the thumbs up on a MySpace genre listing, then you've gotten my point. When you think about it, it's impossible to use those genre categories and not come off as a total self-indulgent idiot. I think I've decided that, from now on, I'm not going to shy away from people asking me what my band sounds like: "Yeah, we mostly play other."

TVP fans and more prep their PayPals for the late great Syd Barrett estate sale. Frenzied bidding already for...

'Syd's' artificial Christmas tree and decorations, comprising mostly of tinsel and baubles. Removed from the back bedroom upstairs.

Syd's' basic tool kit, comprising a hacksaw, mallet, plane, chisel, hammer, screwdrivers and a spirit level, all contained within a red plastic tool box. It was with these basic tools and few power tools that 'Syd' created his furniture and modified his home.

'Syd's Chair', A cream leather reclining armchair. The chair was in the kitchen and was clearly used a great deal by 'Syd', as can be seen from the dark stain to the back rest.

How sad and gross! One day left to sign in.

Per LA Times: Riled blues pianist H-Bomb Ferguson passes away Sunday. Says Ponderosa Stomp, which hosted Ferguson in notable late performances:

Born May 9, 1929 in Charleston, South Carolina, H-Bomb's father was a strict minister who nevertheless encouraged his sons' interest in music, even going so far as to pay for piano lessons. While the future blues singer's repertoire was limited to sacred songs under his old man's roof (Ferguson once recalled that if he even so much as hit a couple of blue notes while practicing, his father would deliver the admonition, "That's the Devil's music! God's gonna strike you down!"), he'd sneak away to a friend's house where he was free to practice the boogie-woogie that he so much adored. He began guest vocalizing in nightclubs as soon as he looked old enough to get in the door and at nineteen Cat Anderson offered him a spot in his blues orchestra. Ferguson didn't have to think twice; he chucked some clothes into a paper bag, snuck out his bedroom window and threw his hat into the blues shouter racket.

In 1950 he found himself in New York City where he waxed his first sides for Larry Newton's Derby label. By the first few months of 1952, ads in the trade magazines hawked H-Bomb recordings on at least three different labels, Atlas, Prestige and Savoy. He was most prolific at Savoy, producing a smattering of classics such as "Bookie Blues," "Tortured Love," "Hot Kisses," "Slowly Goin' Crazy" and his first gold record, "Good Lovin." Savoy insisted on recording him in the style of his professed idol, Wynonie Harris, leading to Harris often referring to H-Bomb as his son during "Battle Of The Blues" shows where the two shouters pitted themselves against one another. After brief stops Sunset and Specialty, Ferguson cut "Hole In The Wall Tonight" for Decca with a seventeen piece orchestra and then vacated New York for Cincinnati, where he still resides today. There he formed the Mad Lads with guitarist Big Ed Thompson and recorded singles for local labels such as Finch, Big Bang and Arc before signing with King/ Federal at the end of the decade.

The Cincinnati recordings all featured H-Bomb's keyboard antics for the first time on wax; a style that began to be known around town as "Thelonius Monk-style blues piano." The results were some of the best records of his career, the zenith of which was the totally out-of-control "Midnight Ramblin' Tonight." His prolific recording career came to a screeching halt after he became disillusioned with the lack of royalties coming his way, but throughout the sixties he remained a popular nightclub attraction, touring with Varetta Dillard, Big Maybelle, Big Mama Thorton and his old Federal label mates, Hank Ballard and Freddy King.

Retiring from music in the early seventies, five years later H-Bomb was back on the scene, wilder than ever. Since then, he's never seen on stage without his series of crazy looking wigs. "The wigs are there to shake them out of their troubles and to reflect the mood I am in," H-Bomb recently told journalist Mick Rainsford, "If anyone in the audience is so wound up that they can't hear me, then they can damn sure see me and if that makes them laugh, then it opens up their minds to the music, to the blues."

More bio here. Apparent bio-pic in production here and if you wanna get his music try this though it's missing "Midnight Ramble" which apparently just slides around on dodgy comps. Like the Jook Block Busters series available here which you should completely get but I bet you won't.

Via the fascinating English Russia:

Here is a little photo-session of an abandoned city. When the Soviet Union collapsed, government didn't have much funds to support some small cities around strategically import objects. People of these cities were left all by themselves. Nobody could support them because any communication with this places terminated after the army decided that they now don't have money to support those objects.

America take a lesson here. Also note that this little photo essay is tagged as "russian humour". More ruins of tomorrow at the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. More Russian can-do-it-tude here. Your official guidebook for your tour here. And here is your tour guide Mr. Dock Boggs, who says he hopes he lives for a few more days. I tried to find Blind Willie Johnson but looks like no one ever youtubed him.

In 1957, a student named Keith Waldrop found a mysterious book called In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Men and Women written by a mysterious man named John Barton Wolgamot. It was a book of names:

Blue cloth binding: four and three-quarter inches tall by seven and three-quarter inches wide. Published in 1944. The right margin is unjustified in a way that suggests verse-but it is clearly prose. The first thing one notices, opening the book, is clusters of names-names of men and women, most of them writers, many well known. But then, even more striking, it becomes obvious that each page contains only one sentence, and it is always-except for the names-almost the same sentence.

Slowly Waldrop and friends would conclude that Wolgamot's book was one of the greatest lost works of the 20th century. Ubuweb has two essays detailing this history. Here are the full articles and below is a fragment:

We can hardly understand today the depth of a commitment to such a project. It makes Wolgamot seem a mad man. Wolgamot was not a mad man. He was one of the sanest and most visionary persons I have ever met. But he lived and worked during a time and in a place where such a commitment was the only possible expression of his genius. All over America, before we became homogenized by the media (and by the ability to travel!), people lived in loneliness and dreams. This was a new people. And especially in the vast (endless) Midwest, where the European-Americans were cut off from their roots, a "civilization"-that is, a collection of memories that make sense of the present-had to be invented.

I have seen this invention in many forms, and indeed most of the forms were a form of madness: the "collectors." (Example 1: A tiny town in Wisconsin where my car broke down and I spent a few hours in the "museum"-admission 25 cents. A huge shed, probably formerly a commercial chicken coop, filled with hand-made boxes about 18 inches in each dimension, with a glass front, stacked six feet high, each box containing every kind of thing the collector had collected in his life-matchbook folders, safety pins, pieces of broken glass, breathtaking banalities-each item elaborately labeled and dated. Hundreds of boxes. A history of civilization. Example 2: A woman with a house full of cheap ceramic carnival prizes-Mickey Mouse, vases, dinosaurs, etceteras, which were put out on the lawn every morning in a new display, a new configuration, and taken in every night and cleaned and polished.) These museums existed in the hundreds. Everybody could tell me about their favorite one. I thought for a moment that I should specialize in this history of America, and make a museum of museums. But of course I couldn't. I think they are all gone now. Still we do not have a civilization, but the museums of memories are gone.

More here. And here is Robert Ashley's sound piece based on Wolgamot. CD re-issue of Ashley's piece here and WFMU interview with Ashley and Waldrop here.

"The Barstow Boyz are to good taste what Kevin Federline is to good taste," Alison Rosen wrote in last week's issue. "Which is to say they wouldn't recognize it if it were a boat in their driveway." Which is a really cute and clever way (that's our Alison!) of saying that the Barstow Boyz play good covers of bad cock rock songs, bringing a party like you wouldn't believe. Tonight, they make a rare appearance at Detroit Bar. So sayeth the Boyz:

You're playing a special Thanksgiving eve show. Who would have been more into the Barstow Boyz: the pilgrims or the Indians?
The Indians would actually be into us because their spirits inhabit us. So they're actually in us, but I think the old black hats would be into us too. They disrespected women like we do.

Join them and about 200 fans and take a cab home. Although staying up till seven a.m. and waking up next to someone you don't know is not the way you want to start Thanksgiving. Trust me.

ALSO: Jerry Lee Lewis for up to $125 a pop at the House of Blues; karaoke at the Prospector; possibly special Definitely Maybe (Indie/Brit Pop) at Memphis Costa Mesa. Know of more? Let us know.

AND IF YOU LOVE LA: Join the Acid Girls as they ditch their night at Avalon for a party in the city @ Crash. Word is:"Crash is held every Wednesday night at The Stone Bar, one of the top rated bars in Hollywood. This place features a huge horseshoe style bar where we are serving the cheapest ass drink specials in town! Gang of Neon & special guest DJs will be thumpin' on an awesome JBL sound system which can be viewed from a make-out loft which over looks the dancefloor. This party is here to provide LA with the latest and greatest in everything in Fight House, Analog Rock, Heavy Synth, French Wave, Indie Rock, Balie Funk, and any other form of mature dance music that's taking the world over . . . This isn't your average bar and this isn't your average "Indie, Electro club" . . . Step it up and let's crash LA!" www.gangofneon.com for more info.

Jimmy Breslin on the assassination of Robert Kennedy in the Times today here. Say Brez:

You couldn't get the gun out of the hand of the shooter. Hands grabbed and yanked and twisted but could not get it. The gun waved and people jumped away from it and now Roosevelt Grier, the immense professional football lineman, grabbed the shooter and got this huge arm around his neck from behind, and somebody screamed, "Kill him!" and Roosevelt just stared. All he had to do was tighten the arm and the guy is gone. Somebody else screamed, "No, no! Keep him alive!"

Very great piece. You'll be down after reading that so let me give you something nicer from that same year: crummy cars, cheap guitars and the system you can't beat live in Detroit below.

Rousing soundtrack for Samsung's new DMZ sentry bot reported by vnunet.com:

Samsung's Techwin division will shortly begin selling heavily armed robot sentries that can identify and shoot a target automatically from over two miles away.

The Intelligent Surveillance and Guard Robot was jointly developed with a South Korean university, and is designed to replace some of the troops guarding the border with North Korea.

The robot will be available next year at a cost of $200,000 per unit, and the company expects to sell 1,000 in the first year.

The system uses twin optical and infrared sensors to identify targets from 2.5 miles in daylight and around half that distance at night. It has a microphone and speakers so that passwords can be exchanged with human troops.

If the password is not accepted the robot can either sound an alarm or fire at the target using rubber bullets or a swivel-mounted K-3 machine gun.

Completely froolpoof. Korea is also working on eight-legged combat robots (version pictured here) and apparently already has little robot armored cars with guns on top (this via Selectroclash?). More video below:

In honor of Dr. Meth Luther King, Jr.:

Related: download this from here for more music inspired by Dr. Meth King's good works.

Scientists testing/messing with dolphins at Disney EPCOT have taught them to sing the Batman theme song:

"The dolphin was reinforced for producing a specific rhythm to a specific object," says Harley.

"For example, when we presented him with a Batman doll, he received a fish for producing a specific rhythm, in this case, a short sound and then a long one."

"If you recall the original Batman TV series musical intro you'll probably remember the way they sang 'Bat-maaaaaaaan'," she adds.

The dolphin spontaneously vocalised to the rhythms, so the researchers started to reward the male with fish whenever it matched its 'singing' to the rhythms.

By the end of the studies, the scientists could show an object, such as the Batman doll, which represented a certain rhythm-vocalisation combo to the dolphin, and it would create the correct sounds both vocally and using the switch.

More on non-stupid non-human tricks here. Shocking footage here.

Via the excellent BLDGBLOG: German artist Florian Dombois translates the subaudible sound of plate tectonics into something the human ear can hear, revealing unique geological characteristics of brewing earthquakes around the planet. Says Dombois:

Usually seismic waves have a frequency spectrum below 1 Hz and therefore cases are rare where earthquakes are accompanied by hearable sounds. The human audio spectrum ranges between 20 Hz - 20 kHz which is much above the spectrum of the earth's rumbling and tumbling. This is one of the reasons why seismometric records are commonly studied by the eye and visual criteria. Nevertheless if one compresses the time axis of a seismogram by about 2000 times and plays it on a speaker (so called 'audification'), the seismometric record becomes hearable and can be studied by the ear and acoustic criteria.

Of interest to us locally is audio of the 1994 Northridge quake sourced from a string of stations between Santa Barbara and Victorville and a global comparison sampling faultlines in California ("SLAM!") and Hawaii ("errrrrrPLOOP!") and Japan ("THROOOOoooom") and more. Complete study of Auditory Seismology starts here. Further fans of Earth music please visit here and here and don't forget here if you're interested in the Next Big Thing.

Reportishes the News Of The World:

SUPERSTAR Britney Spears is facing a mega divorce payout because she did it again and again and again...on a HONEYMOON sex video. Dumped husband Kevin Federline has been touting the four-hour tape for sale and has already been offered £26 MILLION.

Federline, 28, has bragged to pals that his X-rated tape shows the 'Oops, I Did It Again' singer performing a series of explicit sex acts.

The home-made video is believed to show the naked couple enjoying an uninhibited range of love-making and sexual games.It was made during the first weeks of their relationship two years ago when they were holed up in one of the exclusive bungalows at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles.

The source close to Federline said: "At the time the two of them were in the honeymoon stages of the relationship and couldn't keep their hands off each other.

"They did nothing all day but have sex—and play the odd game of chess."

Alleged clips in the usual XXX-pixel-mess places if you'd like to get fired from work today. Pre-porn analysis by ever-erudite Sam McPheeters here. Plus congrats to Federline for eliminating the usual time lag between "porn star" and "blackmailer"--we salute ten pounds of shitbag in a five-pound bag!

You've probably seen Borat, and if so you've probably seen Borat drunk, and you may actually be drunk now, and that puts you in a good state of mind to process this scene-by-scene dissection from Salon. Philosophical guy, the Borat: not many other movies this year have everybody asking questions like, "What is real?" Says Salon:

With few exceptions, the real folks featured in "Borat," the movie, have been happy to talk about their experience, and outing them has turned into a mini-media craze, with tons of news outlets trying to sniff out the stories behind the making of the film. To save you time and satisfy your curiosity, we tracked down some of Borat's victims on our own and also compiled a guide revealing which figures were in on the joke (Pamela -- say it ain't so!) and which weren't.

Pamela exposed in greater detail here by staff Pamela correspondent Steve Lowery. And interviews with a veteran New York feminist here and a producer at that TV station here with this sad story:

"Because of him, my boss lost faith in my abilities and second-guessed everything I did thereafter," she writes in Newsweek's most recent issue. "I spiraled into depression, and before I could recover, I was released from my contract early. It took me three months to find another job, and now I'm thousands of dollars in debt and struggling to keep my house out of foreclosure."

Great success! And plus those frat boys have also filed suit and South Carolina doctor says he's lucky he didn't make the cut, though he'll probably start calling lawyers when the DVD comes out. And Detroit Free Press diligently reports that "the other day" a "Turkish journalist" "claimed" Borat was stolen from him--and yes, as detailed here, it IS Mahir "I Kiss You!" Cagri, fighting the good fight from the fringe of the Internet. Mahir tells AP:

The world knows he is copying Mahir. I am not saying this - the world is. I have received so many e-mails from people in the United States who tell me he is imitating me.

And from Mahir's home page, possibly the first of the great Internet haw-haw sites:

I like music , I have many many music enstrumans my home I can play I like sport , swiming , basketball , tenis , volayball , walk ......... I like sex I like travel I go 3-4 country every year I went , Germany , Nederland , Belgium , Austria , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary, Moldovia , Ukraina , Bulgaria , Romania , Macedonia , Azerbaijan , Georrgia , Iran ..... My profession jurnalist , music and sport teacher , I make psycolojy doctora I like to take foto-camera (amimals , towns , nice nude models and peoples)..... My tall 1.84 cm (6.2 feet) My weight 78 kg. My eyes green .. I live alone !!!!!!!!! I have home - car ......... I like to be friendship from different country .. I live in TURKEY -town IZMIR ...( 4 million peoples - near the sea - old history)... Who is want to come TURKEY I can invitate ..... She can stay my home ........

Damning evidence, to be sure. But not everyone is mad at little Borat. Jewish ("WHAAAAT?") bed-and-breakfast operators Joseph and Mariam Behar tell Salon:

Speaking on the telephone, Joseph, with Mariam chatting in the background, says they saw the film and thought it "was not anti-Semitic at all. It was outstanding. I think [Sacha Baron Cohen] is a genius." Though Borat never broke character, and no one in the production let the Behars in on the joke, Joseph found Borat to be "very lovely and very polite, very attractive."

Also isn't this a music blog? Sure it is! Cold War Kids make music and they're labelmates with Borat. Downtown Records is putting out their this and Borat's... this:

VVoice reports:

Groundbreaking feminist author, activist, and academic Ellen Willis died Wednesday. Willis had been sick from some time. Born in 1941, she served as the first pop music critic at the New Yorker, and later worked as an editor and writer at the Village Voice, on and off, until the mid 1990s.

I'm at the office away from my extensive reference library but you music people will remember Willis from her essay in Greil Marcus' desert-island-disc book Stranded: "Velvet Underground" is one of the finest Velvet Underground essays ever written, right up there with Wayne McGuire's famous piece on drone and transcendence and if I can get a chance tonight I'll find her essay collection and maybe transcribe a tiny bit. Or you can just trust me. Related: I quoted about three words off her here but I don't think that really gets much at all across.

Updated:

From the book Beginning To See The Light: Sex, Hope, And Rock-And-Roll:

What it comes down to for me--as a Velvets fan, a lover of rock-and-roll, a New Yorker, an aesthete, a punk, a sinner, a sometime seeker of enlightenment (and love) (and sex)--is this: I believe that we are all, openly or secretly, struggling against one or another kind of nihilism. I believe that body and spirit are not really separate, though it often seems that way. I believe that redemption is never impossible and always equivocal. But I guess that I just don't know.

Also see obit in The Nation; Ellen Willis' homepage at NYU.